Fusers are found in a variety of printers, copiers, etc. for adhering or fusing marking material such as ink, toner, etc. onto paper sheets or other printable media. The fusing process typically includes one or more fuse rollers that are heated using resistive or lamp-type heating elements. The fuser lamps are often powered by triac controlled circuits, which either run in a phase angle (angle control) or cycle stealing mode. The first method involves turning a triac switch on for only a portion of each AC input power half-cycle, but this type of switching generates harmonics and leads to poor power factor. The cycle stealing technique skips one or more input power cycles or half-cycles, and can cause lamp flicker problems. Full or half-bridge type AC-AC converters provide a pair of MOSFET or IGBT type switches in series where one is controlling the positive half cycle and the other the negative half cycle of the AC input power. Fast recovery power diodes are required for these AC-AC converters to accommodate the flyback current associated with switch turn-off, but such high speed diodes are costly and have high forward voltage levels, leading to high power loss and reduced efficiency. Accordingly, there is a need for improved fuser heating lamp system efficiency and power factor control in printing systems.